Daily Archives: February 12, 2021

Rajkummar Rao and Patralekhaoften sharetheir adorable photos on theirsocial media handles and set major couple goals for fans. Ahead of Valentine's Day, Rajkummar Rao took to Instagram to share a fun video wherein he and Patralekha are trying cheesiest one-liners on each other. Scroll to see the video and know more.

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In the video shared by Rajkummar, he starts the fun game by asking Patralekha, "Why doesn't he like the alphabet Q?"When Patralekha asks him why, he replies, "Because it comes between P (Patralekha's initial) and R (Rajkummar'sinitial) and I don't like anything that comes between us". The next one-liner is said by Patralekha who asks Rajkummar, "Are you wifi? Because I can feel the connection". Further ahead in the video, Rajkummar asks Patralekha to pinch him and says, "Because you are a dream to me. You are the queen of my dreams and I the king of yours".

The video garnered a lot of love from their fans and followers as it hit 80K likes within two hours of uploading. Several fans have praised their chemistry by commenting using the fire and red heart emojis.and even called them the 'best couple'. See their reactions below:

The couple has been together for eight years now. Speaking to Humans Of Bombay, Patralekha said that she first saw Rajkummar in the movie LSD and he was like the weird guy he had played on-screen. His image in her mind was already tarnished. On the contrary, Rajkummar later told her that he had seen her in a commercial and decided to marry her. Shesaid that when they started working together it was then she realised that he was an extremely passionate person. She added that being together is what matters and they don't know what the future holds for them. They were seen together in the 2014 drama film Citylights. The movie was directed byHansal Mehta.Rajkummar is currently is shooting for his next film Badhai Do which also stars Bhumi Pednekar. The film is the second part of the 2018 drama-comedy film Badhai Ho. It is directed byHarshavardhan Kulkarni.

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Rajkummar Rao and Patralekha try cute one-liners on each other ahead of Valentines Day - Republic TV

Like a bad penny, legislation to hide public notices from the public is back in N.C. General Assembly.

House members have filed separate bills that would allow 14 counties in the Piedmont and mountains and 12 counties in Eastern North Carolina to run public notices on their websites instead of in newspapers. This has been a bad idea over the past 10 years and it is arguably a worse idea today when a public health crisis calls for greater transparency, not less.

Why are public notices important?

Public notices catalog government actions in cases of competitive bidding,rezonings, budget hearings, auctions, property transfers, delinquent tax notices, street name changes and more. They alert the public to disruptive land-use changes for things like sewer plants, asphalt plants and garbage incinerators. They tell the public in advance about proposals for traffic-clogging high-density developments and plans for wider roads or new roads.

Although they cost local government a small amount of money, public notices generate revenue by compelling the collection of past-due taxes. Indeed, the threat of having their names published in the local newspaper (and on its website) for nonpayment incentivizes the timely payment of property taxes by an incalculable amount.

Instead of eroding the publics right to know, county commissioners and city council members should be providing as much information as possible to all their constituents, including the many who have no internet access or poor service.

What role do newspapers play?

Newspapers are a community forum. That role does not change with the manner in which you receive local news important to you.

Newspapers have proved to be a lifeline of community news vital to the public during the pandemic; instead of killing the messengers, counties and cities should continue running legal notices in newspapers and help maintain this vital line of communication to the local community.

Current law ensures that public notices reach the largest possible cross-section of the community. The death of newspapers has been greatly exaggerated since the invention of the telegraph machine, radio and television. While the internet has reduced dissemination of news via a printed product, newspapers almost universally have added 24-7 web-based products that in many cases reach a larger audience than those news companies did before websites proliferated. Traffic on county websites is infinitesimally small compared to newspaper websites and print circulation.

A recent study done by the North Carolina Press Association showed newspaper websites drew 4-5 times as much traffic as county websites. Keep in mind, too, that at no extra cost and without being forced to by law newspapers are already posting public notices online and uploading them to a central statewide website http://www.ncnotices.com where the public can read notices from around the state for free.

The survey the NCPA commissioned in December 2020 found that:

6.6 million North Carolina adults read a newspaper product every month for information about their local community.

72 percent of adults read public notices in local print or digital newspapers.

68 percent believe governments should be required to publish notices in a newspaper as a service to the community.

86 percent cite local newspapers as their most trusted source for public notices vs government websites.

The survey broadly undergirds what most people would regard as intuitive fact: The public relies on newspapers more often than any other source of information and its not even close.

What about access to these notices?

According to many studies, fully 30 percent of North Carolinians either live where there is no internet service, they cant afford it, or wont read online even if available (most seniors).

Rep. Warren thinks that everyone has a cell phone with capability to reach county websites, a position that is simply not supportable (there is a comparable group of seniors or those who cant afford wireless or find themselves out of service range).

Readers and viewers still look to newspapers to get community news that no other organization provides. So its a false echo for Rep. Warren and others to argue that its time now (when it wasnt time 10 years ago when he voted against earlier legislation to kill public notice) to allow counties to pull notices because newspapers may publish less frequently today.

Would this save money for our counties?

The fact is legal notice advertising is a tiny fraction of the budget in every county.

It is an important check and balance service that newspapers have provided to local governments for decades, and yes they are paid for it. These notices do not subsidize the operation of small town newspapers.

They keep the public informed.

Removing the newspaper publication cost would scarcely be noticed on local government budget ledgers except to the extent it may reduce their leverage to collect unpaid taxes, making the repeal of the public notices pound foolish.

If our papers didnt play this role, many vulnerable taxpayers would be left in the dark about meetings of local governments that their tax dollars pay for, as well as the decisions and taxes to which those meetings might lead.

Finally, legal ads sometimes more than pay for themselves, either by heading off a costly governmental controversy by drawing public attention early or bringing in cash.

For instance, Moore County paid its local paper, The Pilot, $8,000 to meet a legal requirement to publish the names of delinquent taxpayers who collectively owed $1.37 million. After the ad, Moore County collected $821,000 of the outstanding debt.

This is not about cost savings for the counties. This is about hiding the business of the people and an attempt to strike back at newspapers for doing their job. We are the public watchdogs and occasionally we report on news that is not favorable to elected officials. That role will never change. This is about accountability and transparency.

As described by former Republican lawyer House member Bonner Stiller, giving local governments the choice to suspend notice publication to the public in newspapers would create havoc for free press rights every time a newspaper criticized the government.

Limiting public notice to government websites is a bad idea.

Because as many as one-third of North Carolinians do not have internet access, cant afford it, and would not visit government operated websites even if they had internet access. This bill would bury public notices on a website that few if any citizens visit and effectively would kill the publics right to know.

These measures put local governments into private business, expandinggovernment reach. Posting of public notices to government sites is not a healthy option for democracy. Newspapers are an independent third party responsible for printing and archiving a permanent record of these public notices who would be held accountable if these notices were only required to post on a government run website?

The attempts at retribution against local newspapers are a bad idea.

Contact your local legislator and county commissioners and tell them to keep the fox out of the henhouse. Tell them to keep public notices in newspapers so that the public can see them.

Philip M. Lucey is executive director of the North Carolina Press Association.

Editors Note: To show your support for removal of Stanly County from this bill, contact N.C. Rep. Wayne Sasser Wayne.Sasser@ncleg.gov, N.C. Rep. Ben Moss Ben.Moss@ncleg.gov, N.C. Sen. Carl Ford Carl.Ford@ncleg.gov, County Commission Chairman Bill Lawhon blawhon@stanlycountync.gov, Vice Chairman Tommy Jordan tjordan@stanlycountync.gov, Commissioner Zach Almond zalmond@stanlycountync.gov, Commissioner Peter Asciutto pasciutto@stanlycountync.gov, Commissioner Mike Barbee mbarbee@stanlycountync.gov, Commissioner Scott Efird tefird@stanlycountync.gov and Commissioner Lane Furr mlfurr@stanlycountync.gov and let your voice be heard.

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GUEST EDITORIAL: Counties once again looking to operate in the dark - The Stanly News & Press - Stanly News & Press

Police 'overwhelmed' by tide of online child abuse

Law enforcement agencies are being overwhelmed by the number of cases of online child sexual abuse they are having to deal with, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead for child protection has said.

Feb 8, 2021

By Website Editor

Norfolk Chief Constable Simon Bailey said big tech firms such as Facebook need to accept greater responsibility and do more to prevent the uploading, sharing and viewing of child abuse images as too many parents still have a laissez-faire attitude to what their children do in their bedrooms.

I dont think their role in all this has been truly appreciated because without them the abuse wouldnt be able to take place in so many cases, he said.

Its the big market leaders that actually bear responsibility for making sure the internet is a safe place for our children and for our grandchildren to go. And ultimately at this moment in time its not safe.

He was speaking before the broadcast of the three-part documentary Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles, which follows covert police units using undercover officers. The first episode follows 47-year-old Simon, an undercover officer posing as a paedophile who enjoys abusing his ten-year-old daughter and is looking for other men to join him.

He is bombarded with messages after creating a profile on an open chatroom for children, while an online child sex offender is caught after writing a message offering pictures of a four-year-old girl in a public toilet.

Mr Bailey blamed the staggering increase from 7,000 indecent images of children in 1990 to 17 million on the child abuse image database now on the development of the internet and the ability of anyone to take and share pictures from smartphones.

He said online grooming has gone up during Covid-19 lockdowns with youngsters spending more time on their computers and paedophiles discussing in chatrooms greater opportunities to carry out abuse.

And he described as frightening figures showing that 44 per cent of new indecent images found online are taken by children themselves with 11 to 13-year-old girls most likely to upload and share pictures and videos.

I could describe to you some of the most horrific videos where you can see a child thats been groomed, abusing themselves within their own bedroom and you can hear their mother calling up and recorded on the video, darling, dinners nearly ready, said Mr Bailey.

Now that is pretty horrific, I think, in anybodys estimation.

But Mr Bailey admitted the work was the tip of the iceberg, with the 850 offenders arrested per quarter and the safeguarding of more than 1,000 children a month having little effect, if anything.

Last year the National Crime Agency warned there are at least 300,000 people in the UK posing a sexual threat to children, while the coronavirus pandemic is thought to have made the problem even worse.

It is undoubtedly, in my mind, one of the greatest, if not the greatest societal threats that we are having to now deal with as a police service, said Mr Bailey.

At the moment, law enforcement agencies across the country are becoming overwhelmed with the sheer volume of cases that we are having to deal with, which is absolutely impacting on our ability to deal with the more sophisticated, the more tech-savvy and potentially the more dangerous offenders, and we are having to deal with an awful lot of lower risk offenders.

Mr Bailey said police cant arrest our way out of the problem and said he hopes the Governments Online Harms legislation will hold technology firm bosses to account.

Ultimately, until such time as the companies that facilitate the uploading, the sharing, the viewing of images, the ability to go online and groom a child, until such time as they put in place the right safeguards, despite our very best efforts and the very best efforts of the undercover community, we are never, ever going to be able to deal with the threat in the way we would wish to, he said.

The technology is there to prevent the uploading, the sharing, the viewing of images, I think the technology is there to monitor what is taking place within chatrooms, where grooming is taking place.

Ultimately, the companies absolutely must bear the responsibility for allowing so much of this abuse to take place and I hold them responsible.

A Facebook company spokesperson said: Child exploitation and grooming have no place on our platforms. Using industry-leading technology, over 99 per cent of child exploitation content we remove from Facebook and Instagram is found and taken down before its reported to us.

We also use a combination of technology and behavioural signals to detect and prevent grooming, or potentially inappropriate interactions between a minor and an adult. We have 35,000 people working in our safety and security team to keep our platforms safe.

Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday, February 8.

Excerpt from:

Police 'overwhelmed' by tide of online child abuse - Police Professional